Mother charged with daughter's murder

A South Australian woman has been charged with the murder of two-year-old daughter.

Catherine Anne Pallin, 38, from the small Adelaide Hills town of Macclesfield, appeared in court yesterday, hours after police found the body of her daughter Ayeesha at a rural property in the nearby Bugle Ranges.

Pallin showed up on the doorstop of a stranger's home at Flaxley in the Bugle Ranges at 11.30pm on Wednesday.

The female resident answered the door and soon phoned police, seeing that Pallin was in a state of distress but not knowing why she had come to her home, The Adelaide Advertiser reports.

"She was quite calm, but you could see she had been through some sort of trauma," the woman, who asked not to be named, was quoted as saying.

"Obviously things weren't right. I said to her that I would call the police and she was accepting of that and didn't say no and didn't disappear. I told her to wait outside."

Police searched the area and a short time later found the missing toddler's body at a nearby property that had no connection to Pallin or her family.

It has not been revealed how Ayeesha died or where on the property her body was found.

Pallin was charged with her daughter's murder hours later.

Yesterday, during her court appearance, Pallin spent much of the hearing gazing at the ceiling, The Advertiser reports.

She did not apply for bail and prosecutors said she will undergo a mental health assessment before her next court appearance in September.

Pallin had lived with her partner at their home for the past two or three years with Ayeesha and her partner's son from a previous relationship, neighbours said.